That’s true. In this election, media attacks are nothing but poll enhancers. Trump has made that popular and quite common.
Another take.
That was a very clever move on Trump’s part. He didn’t actually say Carson was a child molester, but he said the two words practically within the same breath, creating an assumed connection. Now while everyone is howling, he can honestly say, ‘that’s not what I said. Watch the video play back. That’s not what I said’. But everyone clearly heard what he said, even when he didn’t say it. He has the attention focused on him again and he has plausible deniability. I have to give him credit for that. I didn’t know he was that smart.